mitted to the ultima ratio of nations;-when the latest, the intensest, the strongest, and the worst of oligarchies, is smitten in its Den by the best Democracy that ever existed,--the only one that ever proved its right to exist;-when political dogmas, North and South, have been framed with absolute precision and candour, and urged with the inexorable logic of war; during such a contest, say, of Principles and Parties, to bring into a focus, to concentrate and organise the essential FACTS respecting the nation and the cause, which occasioned, which maintain, and which will settle the controversy, is, if honestly and carefully performed, a service not without importance in the present, or meaning for the future.

I

It were a question for ideologists, and as such would have its value, "what were a perfect Government for perfect men?" It is a question for antiquarians, "whether Governments that are passed were suited to nations that are gone ?"

The question of questions for living, fighting, and praying men, was lately, whether America was or was not ripe for Democracy; whether America was or was not a nation: With some it is still a question, whether influences which involve the future of the whole world, are or are not now to go forth upon upon it. it. Whether the nation, colonised, educated, fitted, prepared, as the child and champion of Democracy, is now to stand up before God and the Peoples, to vindicate or to betray the truth of the unity and equality of the race,―of the

force that resides in the COLLECTIVE REASON of a nation, and in the recuperative energies of free Institutions. Whether America is the last, and the greatest of failures, or the first, the greatest, and the only Rupublic.

The Americans are on their trial, not the Principles. Principles are not on their trial, they are before and after Peoples, eternal, and "patient, because eternal."

Oligarchy has been on its trial since the world began, and has constantly been condemned and respited times without number, simply because

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the world's government must be carried on." Democracy rests on Christianity, which taught the natural unity and equality of man, and the means to realise it, and, as a principle, Democracy can never go on its trial, till Christianity go with it.

The question in any age, and of any race and form of Government, is, "is the actual form suited to the actual race?" What is the perfect theory as applied to an instructed People, is not the question for uninstructed Peoples, nor ever will be.

Let us then believe in, and rest upon the unchangeable, while we question the questionable, and assail that which ought to be, because it can be, destroyed.

We have seen that the strongest, the completest military, social, and political organisation of oligarchy the world ever knew, has not been strong enough to break down the Democracy of America. We shall see that America is fit for Democracy,

-for that rule by and for the all, to which the world tends as surely as to the judgment!

And knowing what to doubt and what not to doubt,--what to investigate in order to test and destroy, and what to examine in order to exalt and to imitate,-let us also make sure of one thing more,-that the truth can be attained respecting this American nation, and can be attained by us, now. That truth is one and indivisible, that it is made for man and man for it, that it is made to be understood by human reason, and that the collective human reason of an educated nation, is likelier to reduce it to practice, than are the units.

Democracy looks through every man back to that which is behind him- in him, the Soul,the Infinite,-God.

All other theories look to that which is about a man,―his property, his rank, his "qualifications." But these are only questions of adjustment and preparation,—as answering the question, "for what instalment of self-goverment is this nation ready?

America now attains its majority. The hour of its manhood has struck. For a complete nationality it wanted two things;-a thorough application of the principles of Freedom and Equality irrespective of skin-caste, and a more complete administrative unity.

These things the war has provided or is the means of providing. The Slave fight was a "big

job." It was the fiery ordeal through which America had to pass from federation to nationality.

"THE SOUTH" has been the occasion; FREEDOM AND EQUALITY of conditions the motive power; and the various NATIONAL UNITIES, the ultimate bases upon which the movement depends.

Two centuries ago England exported that Nation and that Democracy to America,--but it was in retail, in little, in embryo. Nevertheless all but time and numbers, was furnished by this nation, for that.

Usually, Democracy does not make Civilisation, but Civilisation Democracy. There, Freedom and Religion had already made men Priests and Kings unto themselves, and thus completed and planted in the boundless West, Democracy, Civilisation, and Nationality, worked together, and each upon the other, till they produced another English nation, without certain institutes of Feudality and relics of Barbarism, certain forms of force or favour in Church and in State still surviving and fastened upon ourselves.

The laws,-economic, moral, and political, that govern nations, reveal, at the present epoch, no limit to American nationality Southward, until central America is reached, the region of Panama, where, whether formally or not, there will be of necessity a real neutralisation between all the living and trading nations of the earth. For Panama will become the greatest thoroughfare, and most important Highway for all nations.

C

I here, assume, for reasons amply detailed hereafter, that the American nation is ready for and worthy of Democracy, and that they are now putting beneath their feet their only dangerous foe, Oligarchy, with its eldest-born, Slavery. For if Slavery, or any other phase of Oligarchy,-save that natural one which will rise and fall for ever with individual character and talent,--prevail in America, then, there is for it, neither Democracy nor National Unity, but Disunion and foreign alliances, and for other Peoples whose cause it represents, but a return to the vicious inane cycles of the political past.

The American nationality rests now, upon a Unity of Ideas, Circumstances, and Interests; of Race, Language, Literature, Religion, Institution; also upon the natural material unities of its mountain and water systems, and upon the powerful artificial ones, of commerce, coin, banks, postservice, weights and measures, telegraph, rail, and

revenue.

The more one knows of the facts of National History, the more complete one's comprehension of the principles of Statesmanship, the more thorough will be the acquiescence in the irresistible influence of such a combination of all the factors of Nationality.

Nor does the natural Territorial Unity of America stay with the present limits of the nation.

Northwards as Southwards must the propa